From the description that accompanied this file when I was given it:

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White Powder Christmas. 1978
A BBC VT Christmas Tape
 
Video file
PAL - 25FPS - 4:3 - Stereo - MPEG4
704 X 528
Video average bitrate 1.5 Mbs
Audio average bitrate 70Kbs
Duration: 42mins
 
The video file was coded using Nero Digital H.264/AVC Cinema codec.
To play the video on your computer you will need Nero Show Time or download a suitable codec for your Media Player.
Look here for links....
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=95939
 
As usual, it plays perfectly in VLC.
 
During the 70s and 80s BBC VT staff would collect the 'out-takes' during the year to make a 'Christmas Video' for their own entertainment at the VT Christmas Party.
Inevitable these videos 'escaped' from the hallowed halls of VT into the wild.
These were the 'heady days' of quadruplex 2 inch tapes that took real engineers to manage.  There was no sight of the digital tape cassettes to be found today.  These machines had their own idiosyncrasies and had to be set up every day, hence the real engineers.  Not only were they engineers but there was a huge talent base almost going to waste!
One of these Christmas tapes featured some of the Royal Family and made it into the newspapers.  The 'suits' found out about them and there was a fair amount of finger wagging and they were banned from being made.
Not wanting to miss out on a good thing, the BBC commisioned a plethora of programs showing just exactly what the BBC VT engineers had been doing years before.  Programmes like 'It'll Be Alright On the Night' hosted by Denis Norden, and 'Out=Take TV' currently being hosted by Anne Robinson.
There are lots of 'BBC in jokes' in these VT tapes but I think they're still worth watching.  Play the game and try spotting today's stars as they were some thirty years ago.
 
In this one, there's the usual mix of boobs, out-takes, out-takes with boobs, and specially-recorded silliness. In varying capacities, there's Kenneth Kendall, Gyles Brandreth(I think), Frank Spencer, The Goodies, Spike Milligan, Noel Edmonds, Tom Baker's Doctor Who, K-9 singing, Parkinson and the Muppets, Monty Python, Kenny Everett, The Two Ronnies, The Weather, The Generation Game with Larry Grayson, Blake's 7, Playschool, Blue Peter, Esther Rantzen, Mike Yarwood, Little and Large, Leonard Rossiter, Legs and  co, the industrial dispute,  and a very brief Armando Iannucci-style edited interview with Priness Anne. Also, many people I'm too young and ignorant to know the names of.
For continuity lovers, there's also a nice selection of clean, high-resolution idents, program titles and test cards near the beginning.

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